Psychology of Violence

OBJECTIVE: Obesity and substance use are leading preventable causes of mortality, yet their origins in violence remain poorly understood. This study examined child maltreatment in relation to obesity and symptoms consistent with substance use disorder (SUD) in late adolescence, determining the roles of the child maltreatment type and timing, and gender. METHODS: The sample ( N = 1,161) was drawn from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect. Obesity and SUD were measured at 18-years...

OBJECTIVE: Sexual aggression research has recently expanded to include empirical investigations of coercion during condom negotiation and use. This scoping review presents and discusses peer-reviewed, quantitative, English-language studies conducted on coercive condom use resistance (CUR) behavior and intentions. METHOD: Our systematic literature search yielded 20 articles that assessed coercive CUR perpetration behaviors or intentions and met other inclusion criteria...

OBJECTIVE: Sexual assault perpetration remains prevalent among young men, and emotion regulation (ER) is a prominent contributor to sexual assault perpetration among young men experiencing anger or sexual arousal. However, little is known about the specific ER strategies which men use when perpetrating. Thus, the present study used latent profile analysis to group men into profiles based on their in-the-moment use of several ER strategies during two, hypothetical sexual situations: one which induced anger and another which induced sexual arousal...

OBJECTIVE: Intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy is associated with negative physical and mental health consequences for both mothers and infants. Economic hardship is often exacerbated during pregnancy and is associated with increased rates of IPV in non-pregnant samples. However, temporal associations between economic hardship and IPV victimization have not been well characterized during pregnancy. The present study used data collected at the weekly level to examine the interindividual and intraindividual effects of economic hardship on IPV victimization during pregnancy and determine whether longitudinal changes in IPV across pregnancy vary based on level of economic hardship...

OBJECTIVE: The current study examines college students' perceptions of same-gender and opposite gender peer norms for bystander behaviors in drinking contexts, as well as the association between perceived norms and participants' willingness to intervene and actual behavior. METHOD: Participants completed an online survey assessing bystander-related perceived norms, willingness, and behavior. A subset of participants also completed a measure of bystander behavior 4-months later...

OBJECTIVE: Sexual and gender minority (SGM) men experience sexual assault victimization. Encouraging people to become involved when they witness high-risk sexual situations as a prosocial bystander is one preventative mechanism to address sexual assault victimization. However, research assessing the extent that SGM men will intervene when they witness a concerning male-to-male sexual situation and barriers that prevent intervention is lacking. We sought to address these gaps. METHOD: SGM men ( n = 323, M age = 39...

OBJECTIVE: Intimate partner aggression (IPA), encompassing psychological and physical aggression, is a public health concern due to its high rates among young adults. Research and theory connect heavy drinking and emotion regulation (ER) difficulties to IPA and highlight their potential role in reducing IPA. A web-based intervention combining alcohol reduction strategies with ER skills demonstrated initial efficacy at reducing heavy drinking and improving ER abilities among college women with sexual assault victimization histories...

OBJECTIVE: Sexual and gender minorities assigned female at birth (SGM-AFAB) experience high rates of intimate partner violence (IPV). Using multiwave longitudinal data, the present study tested the following associations of minority stress and IPV among SGM-AFAB: concurrent within-person (i.e., whether changes in minority stress co-occur with changes in IPV), prospective within-person (i.e., whether changes in minority stressors precede changes in IPV), and between-persons (i.e., whether individuals who experience more minority stress, on average, experience more IPV)...

OBJECTIVE: Victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) often fear their intimate partners and the abuse they perpetrate against them. Fear in the context of IPV has been studied for decades yet, we lack a rigorously validated measure. The purpose of this study was to comprehensively evaluate the psychometric properties of a multi-item scale measuring fear of an abusive male partner and/or the abuse he perpetrates. METHOD: We used Item Response modeling to evaluate the psychometric properties of a scale measuring women's fear of IPV by their male partner across two distinct samples: 1) a calibration sample of 412 women and 2) a confirmation sample of 298 women...

OBJECTIVE: Violence is a leading cause of death among individuals ages 18-25, with alcohol misuse consistently linked with violence perpetration. However, the association between polysubstance use and violence perpetration is less clear, despite the frequency of use of alcohol with other drugs. Additionally, protective factors such as mindfulness that may reduce violence perpetration among emerging adults have been understudied. This cross-sectional study examined the association between substance use, trait mindfulness, and violence perpetration outside of romantic relationships, utilizing a compensatory model of resilience...

OBJECTIVE: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms have been associated with elevated rates of deliberate self-harm, including among women who have experienced sexual violence (SV); however, processes underlying this association have not been widely examined. Because a common function of deliberate self-harm is to reduce negative internal states, SV survivors may use self-harm to cope with impairments in broader affective processes associated with PTSD symptoms. To test this hypothesis, the present study examined the role of two aspects of emotional responding (i...

UNLABELLED: Childhood psychological maltreatment is a well-studied predictor of adolescent suicide ideation, while social support is a protective factor, but little is known about social-cognitive mechanisms that may link psychological maltreatment to suicide ideation. Further, given the impact that culture, race/ethnicity, and gender can have on social relationships and suicide-related risk factors, these mechanisms may differ across demographic groups. OBJECTIVE: The current study examined whether psychological maltreatment predicts suicide ideation through self-perception of social competence, and whether this relationship differs depending on race/ethnicity and gender...

OBJECTIVE: To better understand early etiological pathways to trajectories of child exposure to community violence (CECV), we used person-centered latent class growth analysis (LCGA) to examine chronicity of CECV from early school age through early adolescence, and examined early risks of the identified CECV trajectories (i.e., prenatal cocaine exposure, harsh parenting and caregiving instability across infancy and early childhood, and child activity level and inhibitory control at kindergarten age)...

OBJECTIVE: Most studies of peer sexual violence (SV) prevention programs for adolescents focus on program outcomes or feasibility and acceptability; few examine how exposure levels or dosage affects impact. The present study examined the effects of attending multiple community-located youth-led prevention events, as compared to attending one or none, on peer violence (PV)-related attitudes and behaviors. METHOD: Middle and high school students ( M age at first wave = 13...

OBJECTIVE: The Latinx immigrant youth population composes nearly a quarter of all children in the U.S. and are a high-risk group for police encounters. Based on perceptions of Latinxs as criminals, increased enforcement actions against Latinxs in the U.S., and failures of policing and police brutality in immigrants' home countries, we expected that immigrants who reported increased trauma exposure and symptoms would have more negative perceptions of police. METHOD: This study utilized data from 107 recently immigrated Latinx youth to examine how trauma exposure (Child Trauma Screen) and symptoms (Child PTSD Symptoms Scale) related to perceptions of police (Criminal Sentiments Scale-Modified)...

OBJECTIVE: To illustrate Black youth's perceptions of police violence in West Louisville, Kentucky, how they make sense of it, and their responses to it. METHOD: The study used qualitative interviews with youth ages 10 to 24 residing in West Louisville. The interviews did not specifically inquire about experiences with police, but the theme emerged so strongly from the overall analysis that the current study was warranted. The research team employed a constructivist analytic approach...

OBJECTIVE: Intimate partner violence (IPV) constitutes a major U.S. national health concern and disproportionately affects military families. Prior research, which has been conducted primarily in civilian populations, suggests that relative neurocognitive weaknesses may increase risk for IPV. This prospective study examined the associations between post-deployment neurocognitive performance and subsequent IPV (5-13 years later) among warzone veterans in the context of psychological health and TBI...

OBJECTIVE: Bangladesh is historically a patriarchal society, but has made recent strides in increasing educational and economic opportunities for women. Yet men continue to perpetrate economic coercion and other forms of intimate partner violence against women in Bangladesh. This study examines how men in rural Bangladesh shape the economic activities of their wives within the context of changing norms around women's involvement in economic domains. Men's perspectives are not often explored in the literature and can provide valuable insight into how and why economic coercion persists...

OBJECTIVE: Although prior research has demonstrated that peers influence both physical aggression and exposure to violence during adolescence, few studies have investigated the extent to which peers play a role in relations between physical aggression and violence exposure. This longitudinal study examined peer pressure for fighting, friends' delinquent behavior, and friends' support for fighting as mediators of relations between exposure to violence through witnessing and victimization, and adolescents' frequency of physical aggression...

Objective: This study aimed to test empirically whether (1) the local impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with increases in intimate partner aggression (IPA) and heavy drinking, and (2) heavy drinking moderated the association between COVID-19 stress and IPA perpetration. Method: Participants were 510 individuals (approximately 50% who endorsed a sexual or gender minority identity) recruited via Qualtrics Research Services in April 2020, during the height of shelter-in-place (SiP) restrictions across the United States...